Those who you know me personally know how important this woman is to me and how close I am to my Mom. She’s practically one of my best friends. Hell, just last week, we went shopping together and spent one-on-one time together just because it’d been a while and we’d missed one another. I know some people think that’s weird, because who is friends with their Mom, especially that close?

Well, if your Mom was my Mom, you wouldn’t question it.

Ever.

Because this woman is just too incredible to do anything else otherwise.

She is one of my greatest supports and one of the most important pillars in the foundation of who I am as a person–not to mention one of the greatest role models I have as the type of woman I want to be and who I continually strive to be more like. She is one of the bravest people I know, amongst both women and men. She has a wonderful, giving heart and the greatest work ethic you’ve ever seen. She’s fought for and earned everything she has in her life and she deserves so much more. She is a great support for our family and has made more sacrifices than anyone else should. She gives some of the greatest advice, is willing to listen to me and my long-winded stories and randomly texts me to, “Stop overthinking!” because she knows me so well.

Traveling to London together with her last year was one of my fondest memories together and I cannot wait for more adventures in the future. Just as I cannot wait to celebrate so many more years and holidays, but especially birthdays. And today, we’ll be celebrating by having the entire family together, eating a home-grilled meal and competing in Harry Potter trivia (while probably listening to the soundtrack, because let’s be honest).

So here’s to you, Mom! Thanks for being the inspiration I always need, the support I can always count on and the wonderful, caring, loving, challenging and awesome mother that I don’t deserve. Happy Birthday! I love you!

I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this topic before, so I’ll try not to rant about it too much here. But, you know me: when I need to get something off my chest, half the time, if I don’t blog about it, then it ends up festering, and that’s not helpful or enjoyable for anyone involved.

I want to talk about losing weight.

Specifically, my journey to do that and how half the time, it’s a bigger mental game than anything else. And most of the time, it’s that mental game that is more detrimental or harder to deal with than any lifestyle change I’ve made since I started seriously pursuing this journey, a little over a year ago.

You see, I’ve lost 30 pounds out of my 40 pound goal. I knew the last ten pounds would be hard to lose, but they’ve been particularly troublesome, especially since I haven’t really gotten to work out much, thanks to the cold weather and the fact that I’m not to the point where I’ll work out, regardless of how cold it gets (and honestly, I’ll probably never get to that point). I’ve gain a little and lost it again, but mostly maintained. Which is a good thing, but I find myself getting frustrated that I haven’t really made any forward progress on losing those last ten pounds.

There are a couple of reasons for that, honestly.

One, I haven’t ran consistently since November, which is a huge aspect (and was the only element, for most of this) of my working out routine. I haven’t eaten less to make up for the calories I’m not burning, so it makes sense that I’m maintaining, instead of losing.

I also started doing some strength training, so even if I was stuck indoors, I wouldn’t just be sitting around and doing nothing. Not nearly as high in calorie burn as running, but after only doing that routine for a little over a month, I’ve felt my body change in the way it looks and is shaped. I’ve felt myself get stronger. So there’s a good chance that some of that weight I have now is muscle weight, instead of fat.

I also still have splurge days. Granted, I will admit I could do a better job at not going completely overboard, when those days come up (usually Saturdays, if not the entire weekend, when I don’t have a routine that I follow as much), but I do have those, because sometimes, I just want to eat a little extra and be a little lazy. And that’s totally okay, too, even if it slows down my progress a little bit.

All in all, I’m not doing too badly.

Yet I keep fixating on that number on the scale, how I still haven’t “truly” achieved my goal, since I haven’t hit the number I initially set out to hit.

You know and I know it.

That’s bullshit.

I may not have lost 40 pounds, but I have lost 30. My weight may fluctuate a little bit, but I have keep up a consistent workout routine and changed my eating habits to be healthier and more conducive to the lifestyle I want to live and the body I want to have. I have proved to myself that I can create this lifestyle and keep it up, even when I make mistakes or have to recover some lost ground when I slip up. I have developed a confidence and a self-love with my body that I’ve never had before.

I’d say I’ve achieved a damn lot, even if that number on the scale still isn’t exactly where I want it to be. Even if I have cheat days that sometimes go overboard, like last weekend. Even though my own brain tries to diminish my progress by pointing out what I haven’t yet achieved, thus also trying to derail my ability in attempting to achieve those lingering goals, before I make new ones.

I should be proud of all of that, instead of beating myself up for a bad eating day, a missed workout or that number on the scale. Because at the end of the day, I’m putting in the work, I’m creating a lifestyle I enjoy, I’m happy with who I am and I can look in the mirror without cringing.

Just trucking along. It’s midway through March and I’m wondering, currently, why I’m shivering so much and it’s just miserable cold outside (at least, today it is). I’m definitely eager for it to be truly spring, instead of a random nice day here and there, and then I’m back to putting on a ton of different layers when I get off at midnight every night.

But, enough complaining about the weather. Let’s see how things went last week.

Writing
Long-Term Goal: Write two new books and edit two books. Enter the query trenches.

Last Week’s Goal: Write 6x. Continue meeting word count.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. It’s crazy to think that I’m at 60,000 words and I’m only 20,000 away from reaching my minimum word count goal. I love that I’ve met my word count goal every day that I’ve written in March (!!) so far and I can see the end in sight, even if it’s going to take me a little bit more to get there. Really excited to see where these scenes go, though, and how these ideas come to life on the page.

Weekly Goal: Write 6x. Continue meeting word count.

ReadingLong-Term Goal: Read every day, finishing up some old series and keeping up with new ones.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. Not only did I finish Blood of Assassins, but I also finished an ARC of a book called The Hollow Tree last week. It was a good reading week.

Weekly Goal: Read Age of Myth. Write review. Go by library.

FitnessLong-Term Goal: Continue living a healthy lifestyle and shaping a body I love and am proud of.

Last Week’s Goal: Workout 4x, log food honestly and figure out exactly how I want to try and balance cardio and strength training.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. Worked out 4x, though I didn’t do as much cardio as I wanted to, thanks to the colder week last week. I also haven’t figured out how to balance both strength training and cardio, because I haven’t had a week warm enough to try. (*sigh* See why I started off this post complaining about the weather?) I also ate like shit yesterday and ate way too much and have felt pretty bad about it since then, so I really got to do better eating only when I’m hungry on the weekends and not just eating like shit.

Weekly Goal: Workout 5x, log food honestly and don’t eat like a fool on the weekend.

FinancialLong-Term Goal: Learn to have a healthy relationship with money and build my savings.

Weekly Goal: Check out different credit cards and potentially apply for one.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. I did check out some credit cards and talked to my Mom about it, so I have some ideas in mind. Will prolly apply for one here soon.

Weekly Goal: Stay frugal and start saving to move in August.

SpiritualLong-Term Goal: Reconnect with God and grow personally to live more like Jesus.

Last Week’s Goal: Continue praying. Find devotional book to use with Mom.

Status: Negative, Commander. Didn’t pray very much or find a devotional we wanted to do.

Weekly Goal: Pray.

Carpe DiemLong-Term Goal: Find a reason to smile every day and something to get excited about weekly.

Last Week’s Goal: Get stoked about shopping day with Mom on Saturday.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. And it was awesome.

Weekly Goal: Have a blast in St. Louis and enjoy the three day weekend. But also, find ways to enjoy every day of the work week, too (including celebrating my Mom’s birthday!).This week, same focus as usual: writing and working out are my main two goals. But I also want to work on some mental health stuff. I’m pretty happy and things are pretty great, but I find myself wanting to be lazy or just get frustrated that I have to work, which isn’t exactly the healthiest mindset to be in. Sure, work isn’t always the most fun, but it’s also necessary and important, so instead of being bummed that I have to work, why not get stoked about how productive I an be or how many people I can help out? So that’s going to be a focus this week, too.

My feed on Twitter was filled with people shouting out to some of their favorite female authors and some of their favorite series written by women. I had some come to mind, too, specifically from science fiction and fantasy, genres that I love so much.

Sharon Shinn.

Tamora Pierce.

Melissa Caruso.

Erin Lindsey.

Evie Manieri.

Rob Thurman.

Megan O’Keefe.

And that was just some of my top favorites. There are other authors, like Cassandra Clare, J.K. Rowling, Melissa Meyer, K.C. Alexander, who I’ve read and also enjoyed. Then, in the romance genre, I got some of my top authors, too, because I am a sucker for a good romance novel with plenty of heat.

Bec McMaster.

Tessa Dare.

Meljean Brooks.

Amanda Bouchet.

But, honestly?

I had to go to my Goodreads account to remember some of the female authors that I’ve read and loved. Looking through the books I’ve read, I changed the list setting by author and scrolled through.

And was blown away by how many series I love are written by men.

Not only that, but it wasn’t really surprising that I was having trouble remembering female authors whose stories I love and whose work I’ll always support. Because I haven’t, in the grand scheme of things, read that many. Especially not comparatively.

So, have any female writers you think I should be reading or should have read yesterday? Let me know in the comments below–though I definitely plan to be actively seeking for more female writers to read, support and be inspired by. Because next year, on this date, I want to have a lot more female role models to point you towards and beg you to read their books.

As everyone does with their dreams, sometimes (read: all the time), I question whether I have the chops to actually achieve it. If I have the talent, the drive, the passion, the work ethic, the stubbornness, to pursue writing and my dream of being a published author (hint: I do, but it’s easy for my brain to convince me otherwise. Yay, overthinking!).

Usually, I’m able to swallow those doubts, shove them into a dark place I hope to never discover again, even though they always resurface eventually, and I push forward and continue on. I realized something, though, the other day, that will hopefully make these recurrences happen a lot less frequently, so I can continue chasing my dreams without interruption.

I write.

A lot.

That might seem like a dumb statement or like that’s not important or perhaps even obvious. But I didn’t realize to exactly what extent that I truly incorporate writing, almost every single day.

Let’s just look at an average week, based on what it’s been like for this year, and you’ll see what I mean.

I’ve been writing, on average, 2,000 words a day for five days a week, so 10,000 words in my new book. Then, I usually write three blog posts for this blog, all of them averaging another 1,000ish words, so there’s another 3,000 words. Plus my book review over at Erlebnisse, so that’s another 700 words right there. Then, emails. You’d think that wasn’t a lot, but between responding to work emails, catching up on personal emails, not to mention the few email chains I have to stay connected with Twitter friends (and each of those is easily 1,500 words, because hey, each of us are writers and we have a lot to say to one another), that’s a lot of words. Those email chains alone, I prolly have roughly four or five of those going, so let’s say another 10,000 words, just for shits and grins.

All in all, on an average week, I’d probably say I write at least 30,000 words before you even start thinking about social media sites, random letters I get to respond to, texts, etc.

That’s a lot of words.

And aside from the work emails, practically all of that is not only voluntary, but unconscious, on my part. What I mean is, I write that much because I can’t imagine doing anything else. I write books because I love it. Same with blogging. Email chains to stay in touch with out-of-state friends make sense to me, even though it’s weird to other people. I like writing book reviews to help authors out, make connections and rave/rant over a book I’d just read.

Looking at all that, how can I ever, even when the overthinking is strong, question my passion for writing or my desire to chase my dream focused on it?

Last week was a pretty good week, all things considered. Productive, wonderful weather that I’m already missing, as it’s predicted to drop a little bit once again this week, enjoyable and only a few little spurts of random negative emotion, here and there. I still need to work on maintaining a more happy mindset and living in the moment, but overall, I’m pretty stoked with life and where I’m at, and with all the promise the future still holds for me.

Writing
Long-Term Goal: Write two new books and edit two books. Enter the query trenches.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. I’m really stoked to already be at 45,000 words. And I’m about to get into the heart of the story, I think, and really start picking up the pace and the action, so I’m pretty darn stoked about that, too. Hoping the increase in action makes meeting those word count goals a little easier, for the second month working on this story!

Weekly Goal: Write 6x. Continue meeting word count.

ReadingLong-Term Goal: Read every day, finishing up some old series and keeping up with new ones.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. Gosh, Kings of the Wyld was such a fantastic book, I had a blast writing that review. I’m about a third of the way through Blood of Assassins and I’m excited to see where this book is headed!

Weekly Goal: Finish Blood of Assassins. Write review. Start new book.

FitnessLong-Term Goal: Continue living a healthy lifestyle and shaping a body I love and am proud of.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. I walked almost 15 miles last week, which was fantastic. I also logged my food honestly and finally resisted to have doughnuts this morning during DnD, so I’m off to a good start, this week!

Weekly Goal: Workout 4x, log food honestly and figure out exactly how I want to try and balance cardio and strength training.

FinancialLong-Term Goal: Learn to have a healthy relationship with money and build my savings.

Weekly Goal: Pay bills, pay off phone and put money into savings.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. It was a really sad feeling, to get paid and get my tax return all within a span of a few days, only to see all that money disappear thanks to bills and paying off a loan. But, instead, I should be thankful that money was there in the first place and I’ve been able to keep up my plan of putting $100 into savings every month so far, including March already, so I’m pretty stoked about that.

Weekly Goal: Check out different credit cards and potentially apply for one.

SpiritualLong-Term Goal: Reconnect with God and grow personally to live more like Jesus.

Last Week’s Goal: Pray.

Status: Affirmative, Commander. I do still need to work on this, but I did pray at least once last week that I thought was actually a really good…prayer session, I guess you could call it. I felt like I talked with God honestly and openly, with only minimal distractions, so that was really nice.

Weekly Goal: Continue praying. Find devotional book to use with Mom.

Carpe DiemLong-Term Goal: Find a reason to smile every day and something to get excited about weekly.

Last Week’s Goal: Smile every day.

Status: Affirmative, Commander.

Weekly Goal: Get stoked about shopping day with Mom on Saturday.Going to continue working on book two in the Artemis quintet, as my goal is to reach 80,000 words by the end of this month. It’s going to be a challenge, but if I keep up with what I’ve been doing so far, I think it’s totally doable. I’m also hoping to really start adhering to a schedule, working out wise, where I start getting up on time in the mornings and get to work straight away, instead of being sluggish and sleeping in. I also want to try and make something different to eat for dinner this week, instead of my usual fare, and try to do my hair everyday.

I’m hoping, with starting out each morning with working out and doing my hair each day, I can start the day off right and continue feeling confident and productive throughout the rest of the day.

It’s crazy to realize today’s the last day of February, but I think it’s almost crazier still to look back and realize that, on February 1st, twenty eight days ago, I started writing the first draft of Artemis Smith and the Steam Powered Fallacy.

And today, I surpassed 40,000 words.

Meaning I’m writing, on average, 10,000 words a week, over a span of six days (but usually five).

I’m seriously excited about this, friends.

Especially since today’s writing session almost stopped at 600 words.

I just wasn’t feeling it. I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the problems this story has and how difficult it’s going to be to ever get this story published in the first place. I started to feel, honestly, a little hopeless, as I know this story started too slow and we’re just about to start getting into the thick of it and yet I’m almost 90 pages in, so I’m going to have to do a lot of work on the half I’ve already written. My brain kept being drawn to all the “negatives” around this story right now and how problematic it is, even though it’s a first draft and they’re honestly meant to be this way.

I’d already closed out of all my social media accounts, so that wasn’t distracting me, but I couldn’t help looking at my To-Do List and wondering if there was something else I could do to take up my time, instead of trying to push through and make my writing goal for the day. I was already ahead, so what if I feel a little behind again after one bad day?

Yet I kept pushing and I kept writing. I knew where this scene was headed, I just needed to do the work and actually write it.

I actually really like how this scene turned out. Do all those problems I worried about before still exist? Oh, absolutely, without a doubt. Yet the best parts of this novel, I still have to write. And I’ve already been so pleasantly surprised with some of the scene and events that have popped up already, that were never in my original outline. I’ve put in the work and I’m in a great spot to have a finished draft (or at least reach my word count goal of 80,000 words) by March 31st. And that’s including starting two weeks late, thanks to the flu. That’s including the days were I couldn’t push through and either missed writing or didn’t meet my word count goal. That’s in spite of the fact that, the last two attempts I tried at writing a new novel, I stopped 40 pages ago.

I’ve developed a pretty regular routine over the past 28 days, writing at least five times a week consistently. I have a story that is just the bare bones of what it needs to be, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s a reflection of hope, a result of work, a symbol of persistence and the product of following my dreams, no matter what.